Thursday, November 19, 2015
Adele Refuses to Stream New Album "25"
Famous pop artist Adele hasn't released an album since 2011, and a song since 2012, but she will be releasing her 3rd album "25" in a few days. A lot has changed in 4 years.
For example, Spotify and other sites have emerged in the services of streaming music. In a very complicated and controversial contract, apps like Spotify are able to stream songs, which listeners can either listen to on their computers for free (with ads), or they can pay $5 (college student) or $10 a month to get no advertisements, as well as get songs on their phone.
Essentially, this gives listeners the rights to owning songs without artists getting money for them.
Taylor Swift is an artist that has also not allowed for streaming of her songs, since she believes musicians should make money off their hard work in their music. Adele doing this comes at no surprise, since she is one of the more popular artists alongside Swift in the modern era.
With the demand of streaming exponentially increasing, less people are willing to buy songs off of iTunes and Google Play, since they can save a lot of money by just using and accessing Spotify. This, in turn, has caused companies like Apple to lose revenue in this sense, which caused them to create Apple Music, their own streaming site, to compete with Spotify and other sites like Pandora and Rhapsody.
This also comes as no surprise, seeing that iTunes made CDs pretty much extinct, and streaming might be doing the same to electronically selling music. Alternatively, concert tickets are increasing so that artists can make back the money they lost in record sales.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/20/business/media/adele-music-album-25.html?ref=business&_r=0
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Although it does seem fair that artists should be properly compensated for their hard work, people these days are so used to either using apps such as Spotify and Pandora or downloading music illegally, that the thought of paying for a song is almost absurd. However, with the popularity of Adele's newest song, "Hello", perhaps people will be more inclined to buy the album. At the same time, music that is not supposed to be released on apps such as Spotify always end up on websites such as Youtube. Therefore, although artists such as Adele and Taylor Swift refuse to release their music, their tactics may not be too effective in preventing the public in accessing their work.
CD's are pretty much extinct so singers will not be making a profit off of them and I suppose they can be upset about that but a CD is more difficult to purchase, you have to go to the store and pick it up and it cost around 12-20 dollars. It is easier to sit on your butt and buy the album on iTunes or download it illegally. I for one do not understand why some singers ban the streaming of their songs on websites from Pandora or Spotify, you can still listen to their songs on YouTube over and over again, wouldn't they just like the fact that their song is popular and people enjoy listening to it?
As for concert tickets increasing, if they become too expensive I predict that not many people will want to go because many people don't have that kind of money and will simply continue to listen to their songs on the radio or watch a clip from the concert that someone downloaded on the internet. I agree with Sophia that these tactics that some singers have put in place to keep their music away form the public is not effective or efficient.
I think streaming will continue to become a larger part of the music market. With more and more companies entering this market prices are becoming increasingly competitive making this a very attractive option for consumers at the cost of the artists' hard work. With this being said, I do think that musicians should be paid a portion of the profits that are made by these companies when the music is put on their phones. I feel bad that artists are subject to this loss in revenue despite all the work they do. While the increase in concert tickets helps with this issue it does not cover all the losses to the artists. I think this brings up a valid issue that needs to be addressed in the music industry.
Cd's being obsolete was a apparent and predictable result of the digital online age that has revolutionized the way we think of the music industry. Going to the store and buying the newest hits is an element of the past or at least not the most popular trend. However; in terms of the online streaming age it does make sense for artists to voice their disdain in terms of not being able to make any revenue. With the addition of new companies entering this market for online streaming has led to this gap between the artist making the product and the consumer receiving it without paying due cost to the artist. This leads to obvious expensive concert tickets and lost revenue.This gap will be very difficult to fill and it will be interesting to see how the market evolves over the years.
It is really not surprising that she is doind this. A lot of musicians are having a hard time of making income, so they have to raise the ticket price to their concert. This is a good way to protect the artists to actually make money for living .
I think an option for a solution for this would be that the artists should receive a royalty whenever their song is played on a streaming site. Obviously, they can't control every song of theirs that is put up on youtube, but a the very least a royalty should be due to them. As far as the price of concert tickets go, speaking as a concert addict, if I really love an artist I will and have paid top dollar to see them live because they will put on a good show, they are people who inspire us and always give us something to look forward to. I think that to music lovers, if its someone they absolutely love, then they will pay the price to see them. We have to remember that artists also make a good amount off of merchandise sales, which are present at every concert. Those items are absolutely not cheap, but die-hard fans will be up at that merch table every show, I should know, I'm one of them.
I completely understand this action Adele is taking. It is just the same as the movie and TV industry faces with online streaming services. Services such as Hulu and Amazon Prime pay as much as $3.5 million per episode for a currently airing TV season, while Netflix waits until these licensing fees come down after the full season has aired or when a movie has been on DVD for several months. Depending on which streaming services are desiring to stream her album, could result in a $.01 per play or offer a flat fee for the month. Nothing compared to $1.29 per song on ITunes or $14.99 for the entire album. If she's averaging multi million downloads, it really doesn't make economical sense for her to stream her album.
in the era we live in today where there is so many different ways to access free music, it is nice to see some artists standing up for not getting what they deserve. Many more artists are touring now because of the different outlets that don't result in royalties. Artists are being undercut because of all of the free music website,s and When you see big artists boycotting their music to be played for free, it is smart on their part. They want the money they deserve for the work they put in.
It is really interesting to see how the streaming music industry has changed how music is listened to and how musicians earn their money now. It definitely makes sense and is understandable that musicians are trying to earn what is rightfully theirs. As a person who takes advantage of free streaming music, it is interesting to see how concert ticket prices are increase to help take in some of the money that musicians are losing through the streaming services.
Post a Comment